The problem-solver’s playbook: 17 questions to sharpen your thinking
问题解决者的行动手册：17个问题让你思维敏锐
tl;dr Stop falling in love with your problem, and definitely don’t fall in love with your solution.
tl; dr不要再沉迷于你的问题，更不要沉迷于你的解决方案。
If somebody had asked me years ago to distil product management in two words, I’d have answered: solving problems. Isn’t that our main job? Find out what the customer’s problems are and solve them. Bam, job done, give me the applause I deserve!
如果几年前有人问我，用两个词来概括产品管理，我会回答：解决问题。那不是我们的主要工作吗？找出客户的问题所在并加以解决。干得好，给我应得的掌声!
Now, the problem with being passionate about problem-solving was that when I saw a problem, my instinctive reaction was “How can I solve it?” I was a problem slut: I was attracted too easily to too many problems. That means:
现在，热衷于解决问题的问题是，当我看到一个问题时，我的本能反应是"我该如何解决它？"我是个问题荡妇：我太容易被太多的问题所吸引。这意味着：
I usually ended up burning out quickly trying to solve all the problems myself.
我通常很快就精疲力竭，试图自己解决所有的问题。
I also often felt frustrated when I couldn’t get enough buy-ins and resources to solve the problems.
当我无法获得足够的支持和资源来解决问题时，我也经常感到沮丧。
And, worst of all, I got bored easily when executing the solution, as I have already fallen in love with another problem.
而且，最糟糕的是，我在执行解决方案时很容易感到厌烦，因为我已经爱上了另一个问题。
After many episodes of burnout and frustration, I learned my lesson. If you ask me now what my job is, I’ll answer: multiplying value. That means that I only work on problems worth solving, in a way that delivers the optimal value for the customers.
在经历了许多次精疲力竭和沮丧之后，我吸取了教训。如果你现在问我我的工作是什么，我会回答：乘法值。这意味着我只处理值得解决的问题，以一种为客户提供最佳价值的方式。
By focusing on multiplying value rather than solving problems, one actually becomes a better problem solver.
通过关注价值倍增而不是解决问题，一个人实际上会成为一个更好的问题解决者。
Here are 17 explorative questions to help you sharpening your thinking, divided into 3 sections.
这里有17个探索性的问题来帮助你锐化你的思维，分为3个部分。
Section 1: Assessing if your problem is worth solving
第1部分：评估您的问题是否值得解决
This section is useful if you already have a problem in mind. You might come across it from reading customer feedback, talking to the support team, or watching a customer recording. Using the dating analogy, this is the part where you make sure your crush is worth falling in love with.
如果您已经有了问题，本节将非常有用。您可能会在阅读客户反馈、与支持团队交谈或观看客户记录时遇到它。用约会的比喻来说，这是你确保你的暗恋对象值得爱上的部分。
#1: Is this problem merely a symptom of a bigger problem?
#1：这个问题仅仅是更大问题的症状吗？
It’s always worth taking the time to ask the 5-Whys and make sure that you get to the addressable root cause and not just solve the most visible symptom.
花时间问5个为什么总是值得的，并确保您找到了可寻址的根本原因，而不仅仅是解决最明显的症状。
One simple example: If a sign up to a certain feature is low and you see that there are some usability issues in the form, it’s easy to jump straight and fix those form issues. (Or worse, you see the usability issues first, and then you dig the sign up number to confirm that this is a problem. That’s a confirmation bias right there!)
举个简单的例子：如果某个功能的注册率很低，而您看到表单中存在一些可用性问题，那么直接修复这些表单问题是很容易的。(Or更糟糕的是，你先看到可用性问题，然后你挖注册号来确认这是一个问题。这就是一种确认偏见！）
Meanwhile, the sign up might be low because the feature isn’t bringing adequate value (quality issue), or it doesn’t bring the value customers need (product-market fit issue). This is why it’s important to dig qualitative and quantitative insights to get the full picture.
与此同时，注册率可能很低，因为功能没有带来足够的价值（质量问题），或者它没有带来客户需要的价值（产品市场匹配问题）。这就是为什么挖掘定性和定量的洞察力以获得全貌是重要的。
#2: How impactful is this problem for the customers?
#2：此问题对客户的影响如何？
The answer to this question isn’t as simple as ‘nice to have’ or ‘must have’. There are three dimensions you need to consider in assessing the impact of a problem:
这个问题的答案不是“拥有就好”或“必须拥有”那么简单。在评估问题的影响时，您需要考虑三个方面：
Reach: the number of customers this problem is impacting. This is a real, objective number.
覆盖范围：此问题影响的客户数量。这是一个真实客观的数字。
Intensity: how deep the pain caused by this problem is. This one is a slightly arbitrary scale of low-medium-high, or you can use a scale of 1–10, up to you. As far as possible, the assignment of the score should be based on user research.
强度：这个问题造成的痛苦有多深。这是一个稍微随意的低-中-高等级，或者你可以使用1 - 10的等级，由你决定。评分应尽可能以用户研究为基础。
User segment: who are the customers impacted by this problem. Some of your customers are more valuable to the business than others. You can use a multiplier here, e.g. segment A and B are 1x in value, but segment C has 2x value.
用户细分：谁是受此问题影响的客户。您的一些客户比其他客户对业务更有价值。您可以在此处使用乘数，例如，段A和段B的值为1x，但段C的值为2x。
Impact = reach * intensity * user segment
影响=覆盖范围 * 强度 * 用户细分
Thinking about these three dimensions separately allows you to assess the importance of a problem more comprehensively.
分别考虑这三个维度可以让你更全面地评估问题的重要性。
#3: How will solving this problem benefit the company?
#3：解决这个问题会给公司带来什么好处？
Guess what, what the customers need and what the company wants aren’t always aligned. I was that bright-eyed, idealistic young woman trying to solve customers’ problems when the company couldn’t care less because it wasn’t profitable for them to do so. After all, companies are created to make a profit by serving customers’ needs.
你猜怎么着，客户的需求和公司的需求并不总是一致的。我是一个眼睛明亮、充满理想主义的年轻女性，试图解决客户的问题，而公司却漠不关心，因为这样做对他们来说没有利润。毕竟，公司的创建是为了通过服务客户的需求来盈利。
I have one trick to tip this one in your favor: think about how this problem can harm the company in the long term. Maybe there’s no clear short-term incentive to solve this issue for the business, but over time, it can erode the trust in your company and hurt long-term profitability.
我有个小窍门能帮你：想一想这个问题对公司的长远危害。也许短期内没有明确的激励措施来为企业解决这个问题，但随着时间的推移，它会侵蚀人们对公司的信任，损害长期盈利能力。
#4: Does it align with the company/product’s long-term vision and strategy?
#4：是否与公司/产品的长期愿景和战略一致？
Even when a problem is impactful for the customers and profitable to solve for the company, it might not align with its vision. A simple example is if the problem is on the web, while the company wants to focus on the app.
即使一个问题对客户有影响，对公司有好处，但它可能与公司的愿景不符。一个简单的例子是，如果问题是在网络上，而公司希望专注于应用程序。
Saying ‘no’ to an important problem when it doesn’t align with the company/product’s vision is paramount to maintaining focus. To quote Michael Porter, ‘The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.’
当一个重要问题与公司/产品的愿景不一致时，对它说“不”对保持专注至关重要。引用迈克尔·波特的话来说，“战略的本质是选择不做什么。”
#5: What do you need to deprioritize to work on this?
#5：你需要优先考虑什么来完成这项工作？
You only have a finite resource and when you work on a certain problem, it means you’re not working on other problems. That’s your opportunity cost: the potential loss from a missed opportunity.
你只有有限的资源，当你在解决某个问题时，就意味着你没有在解决其他问题。这就是你的机会成本错失机会的潜在损失。
Think about the next thing(s) you’re going to work on if you’re not working on this problem, and make sure that you can afford that cost.
如果你不解决这个问题，想想你要做的下一件事，并确保你能负担得起这个成本。
#6: What happens if you do nothing?
#6：如果你什么都不做会发生什么？
Thinking about the cost of delay, or the cost of doing nothing, is a powerful exercise to do. You also get to see that some problems are like a fire — you either have to solve them now or rebuild later. Other problems are like a leaking roof — it gets worse and worse slowly until the whole roof falls down. Some other problems are like a puddle of water — it’s annoying but it doesn’t harm anyone as long as everyone knows to walk around it.
思考拖延的代价，或者什么都不做的代价，是一个强有力的练习。你也会看到有些问题就像一场大火--你要么现在就得解决，要么以后再重建。其他的问题就像屋顶漏水--它慢慢地变得越来越糟，直到整个屋顶福尔斯下来。其他一些问题就像一滩水--它很烦人，但只要每个人都知道绕着它走，它就不会伤害任何人。
Section 2: Finding a problem that matters
第2节：发现重要问题
Going back to the dating analogy — you know what wise men say, ‘Being single is great because you get to think about what you really want in your partner!’ Similarly, when you’re not thinking about a particular problem, you have more space to think above and beyond.
回到约会的类比--你知道聪明人怎么说的吗，"单身很棒，因为你可以思考你真正想要你伴侣的什么！“同样，当你不思考某个特定的问题时，你会有更多的空间去思考。
This is also what usually differentiates a more junior and senior product managers. Senior PMs would identify and scope opportunities to make the product 10x, instead of just 10%, better.
这通常也是初级产品经理和高级产品经理的区别所在。高级项目经理将识别并确定机会范围，使产品提高10倍，而不仅仅是10%。
#7: What is the customer’s job-to-be-done?
#7：客户需要完成的工作是什么？
Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework prompts you to think wider than your product usability problems. When a user flies from London to Dublin, their goal is not to ride a plane, it’s to meet their colleagues. If you’re an airline company, your threat of substitution isn’t just fellow airlines, it’s also Zoom and Google Meet.
JTBD（Jobs-to-done）框架提示您考虑的范围要比产品可用性问题更广。当用户从伦敦飞往都柏林时，他们的目标不是坐飞机，而是见同事。如果你是一家航空公司，你的替代威胁不仅仅是其他航空公司，还有Zoom和Google Meet。
Understanding the reason your customers ‘hire’ your product gives you a clear direction to improve your product. Airbnb users are looking to have a nice holiday, not just a place to stay — hence Airbnb Experience was born.
了解你的客户“租用”你的产品的原因给你一个明确的方向来改进你的产品。Airbnb用户希望有一个美好的假期，而不仅仅是一个住宿的地方-因此Airbnb体验诞生了。
#8: How can I build a deeper moat for my product?
#8：如何为我的产品建立更深的护城河？
A moat is a deep pool of water surrounding a castle — it serves as a way to defend the castle against an attack. Building a moat in business or product means making it hard for new entrants or competitors to steal your customers.
护城河是城堡周围的一个深水池--它是防御城堡攻击的一种方式。在业务或产品中建立护城河意味着让新进入者或竞争对手难以窃取你的客户。
One of the most popular way to build a moat is creating network effects: where increased numbers of people using your product increase the value of your product for each individual.
建造护城河最流行的方法之一是创建网络效果：其中使用你的产品的人数的增加增加了你的产品对每个人的价值。
Network effects are obvious in products like social media(which is useless if you have no friends, or nobody to follow) or marketplace (which again is useless if the customers can’t find the product/service they need, or the sellers don’t find any buyers). But you can also implement network effects in other products by making an activity that’s typically done on your own (e.g. exercising or investing) and adding a social element to it.
网络效应在社交媒体（如果你没有朋友，或者没有人关注，社交媒体就毫无用处）或市场（如果顾客找不到他们需要的产品/服务，或者卖家找不到买家，市场也毫无用处）等产品中表现得很明显。但是，你也可以在其他产品中实现网络效应，方法是进行一项通常由你自己完成的活动（如锻炼或投资），并在其中添加社交元素。
Network effect is just one way to build a moat. You can also deter customers from switching by creating emotional attachment to your product, patenting your technology, etc. Recommended reading: building growth moats without network effect.
网络效应只是构筑护城河的一种方式。你也可以通过对你的产品产生情感依恋、为你的技术申请专利等方式阻止客户转换。推荐阅读：构筑无网络效应的生长护城河。
#9: If a new hotshot founder creates a pitch deck to disrupt my industry, what will they say about my company/product?
#9：如果一个新的成功创始人创建了一个营销平台来扰乱我的行业，他们会怎么说我的公司/产品？
Your company/product might have been created a few years ago with the same ambition: to disrupt a broken industry. You named 50-year-old companies as the enemy and pitched your solution as the revolutionary savior.
几年前，你的公司/产品可能也是怀着同样的雄心创建的：来颠覆这个破碎的行业。你把50年前的公司称为敌人，把你的解决方案称为革命性的救世主。
The irony is that you can easily slide into being that old enemy in just a few years time if you stop innovating.
具有讽刺意味的是，如果你停止创新，你很容易在短短几年内滑向那个宿敌。
The society is evolving faster than ever and the bar is raised constantly. If you don’t disrupt your own product, somebody else will.
社会发展比以往任何时候都快，标准也在不断提高。如果你不破坏自己的产品，别人也会。
#10: What future situation can make my product irrelevant?
#10：什么样的未来情况会让我的产品变得无关紧要？
The pandemic came as a blow to many companies. Products relying on people traveling or gathering suddenly became paralyzed, and they had to pivot quickly to online events or other means to make money.
这场大流行病对许多公司来说是一个打击。依靠人们旅行或聚会的产品突然瘫痪了，他们不得不迅速转向在线活动或其他方式来赚钱。
Pandemic at the scale of Covid-19 is probably a once-every-century occurrence, but it doesn’t mean there won’t be other situations that make your product irrelevant. Regulatory change is one possible scenario.
像COVID-19这样规模的大流行可能是世纪一遇，但这并不意味着不会有其他情况让你的产品变得无关紧要。监管变化是一种可能的情况。
It also doesn’t have to be an overnight revolutionary change. A slow evolution such as the rise of renewable energy, electric vehicles, plant-based meat alternatives, job sharing, etc can impact your product. Keep a lookout because the future is already there, it’s just not evenly distributed.
它也不一定是一夜之间的革命性变化。一个缓慢的发展，如可再生能源、电动汽车、植物性肉类替代品、工作分担等的兴起，可能会影响你的产品。保持警惕，因为未来已经存在，只是分布不均匀。
Section 3: Discovering the best solution
第3部分：发现最佳解决方案
When people talk about product discovery, often the focus is on problem discovery. The old adage of ‘PM owns the problem, engineers own the solution’ could also make PMs reluctant to go into the solution space.
当人们谈论产品发现时，通常重点是问题发现。“项目经理拥有问题，工程师拥有解决方案”的古老格言也可能使项目经理不愿意进入解决方案空间。
I totally agree that a PM shouldn’t decide on, or, God forbid, specify the solution in a silo. But a PM should still be driving the solution discovery process, by amassing the expertise of engineers, designers, data scientists, and the stakeholders.
我完全同意PM不应该决定，或者，上帝禁止，在筒仓中指定解决方案。但是PM仍然应该通过积累工程师、设计师、数据科学家和利益相关者的专业知识来推动解决方案发现过程。
#11: How much is our appetite to solve this problem?
#11：我们解决这个问题的胃口有多大？
To put simply, how much resources do you want to allocate? How long do you want the designers and engineers to spend on this? A task can expand to fill the time and space it’s been given, as the Parkinson’s law suggested.
简单地说，你想分配多少资源？你希望设计师和工程师在这上面花多长时间？正如帕金森定律所暗示的那样，一项任务可以扩展到它所给定的时间和空间。
It’s important to clarify the boundaries early and communicate them to the team.
尽早明确界限并将其传达给团队是很重要的。
#12: What is feasible to build?
#12：什么是可行的建设？
A good solution is desirable by the users, viable for the business, and feasible to build with the resources and constraints you have.
一个好的解决方案是用户所期望的，对业务来说是可行的，并且可以用您所拥有的资源和约束来构建。
Assuming that you’ve done your homework from question 1–11, I assumed that your solution is likely desirable and viable. The feasibility aspect is the one you need to figure out now, by leveraging the expertise of your engineers (and other technical function such as data scientists).
假设你已经做了问题1 - 11的功课，我假设你的解决方案可能是可取的和可行的。可行性方面是您现在需要通过利用工程师（以及其他技术职能部门，如数据科学家）的专业知识来弄清楚的方面。
The importance of this discovery can’t be overstated. There’s a world of difference between an array of solutions. For example, my team at Bulb was exploring giving energy savings advice on the app. The solution can be an array of:
这一发现的重要性怎么强调也不过分。一系列解决方案之间存在着天壤之别。例如，我在Bulb的团队正在探索在应用程序上提供节能建议。解决方案可以是一系列：
•Creating a banner linking to a blog post containing generic advice
创建链接到包含一般建议的博客文章的横幅
•Breaking down the advice and making it look ‘native’ to the app
分解建议，使其看起来像应用程序的“原生”建议
•Personalizing the advice by only showing the ones applicable to the users (e.g. don’t say ‘improve your house’s insulation’ if the house is a new-built)
个性化建议，只显示适用于用户的建议（例如，如果房子是新建的，不要说“改善房子的隔热性能”）
•Personalizing the advice by showing the saving amount (e.g. by doing this, you could save £20 / year)
个性化建议，显示储蓄金额（例如，这样做，您可以保存£20 /年）
The third and fourth solution requires user data that we might not have, so it might not be feasible for now. Equipped with this knowledge, you can make a decision e.g. build the second solution now, while doing some research on the value of #3 and #4 to see if it’s worth building. Which brings me to the next point: diminishing return.
第三和第四种解决方案需要我们可能没有的用户数据，因此目前可能不可行。有了这些知识，您就可以做出决定，例如，现在构建第二个解决方案，同时对#3和#4的价值进行一些研究，看看它是否值得构建。这就引出了下一点：收益递减。
#13: Where is the point of diminishing return?
#13：收益递减的临界点在哪里？
The most complex solution is almost certainly the most expensive one to build. The good news is, your customers might not need it! A solution that takes half the time to build might perform 80% of the job — diminishing return principle might apply here.
最复杂的解决方案几乎肯定是构建成本最高的。好消息是，您的客户可能不需要它！花费一半时间构建的解决方案可能执行80%的工作-收益递减原则可能适用于此。
You can test this by building an MVP version of the solution, ship it to a small % of users, and measure the impact. Improve the solution via small iterations rather than spending months and months building the perfect solution.
您可以通过构建解决方案的MVP版本来测试这一点，将其交付给一小部分用户，并衡量影响。通过小的迭代来改进解决方案，而不是花费数月构建完美的解决方案。
#14: What would the Red Team say about this solution?
#14：红队会如何评价此解决方案？
The ‘Red Team’ is an exercise to look at your solution as if you’re the enemy, biggest critic or competitor. The job of the Red Team is to poke holes in the solution and challenge you with everything that could go wrong. It’s a useful exercise because your actual competitor might do the same thing later.
“红队”是一种练习，它将你视为敌人、最大的批评者或竞争对手来看待你的解决方案。红队的工作是在解决方案中找出漏洞，用一切可能出错的东西来挑战你。这是一个有用的练习，因为你的实际竞争对手可能会做同样的事情。
You can also imagine the most cynical press review you might possibly get. Especially if your company is under quite a lot of spotlight, this might be a completely feasible scenario. (I still remember the time the press wrote the headline ‘Facebook asks users for nude photos’…)
你也可以想象你可能得到的最愤世嫉俗的新闻评论。特别是如果你的公司是在相当多的聚光灯下，这可能是一个完全可行的场景。（我还记得媒体写标题“Facebook要求用户提供裸照”的那次...）
#15: What is the riskiest assumption we have here? How can we de-risk it?
#15：我们这里最危险的假设是什么？我们如何降低风险？
Solutions are based on assumptions — that customers want to do certain actions, that engineers can build something in a certain way, etc. Your team might have different confidence level in those assumptions. And each assumption also has different level of importance in making your solution works.
解决方案基于假设-客户希望执行某些操作，工程师可以以某种方式构建某些东西，等等。您的团队可能对这些假设有不同的信心水平。而且每一个假设在使你的解决方案起作用方面也有不同程度的重要性。
Try to map out those assumptions in a 2x2 scale of confidence and importance so you can identify which assumptions you need to de-risk.
试着用2x2的置信度和重要性来衡量这些假设，这样你就可以确定哪些假设需要去风险化。
#16: What is the smallest chunk of value we can deliver?
#16：我们能提供的最小价值是什么？
As much as possible, I avoid building for months and releasing a fully-fledged feature in a big bang. No matter how much research and testing you’ve done, the true test of a feature success is when it’s launched to the wild. Time lag between research and launching increases the chance of changes in requirements, trends, and appetite.
我尽可能地避免花几个月的时间构建并在一次大爆炸中发布一个成熟的特性。无论您做了多少研究和测试，功能成功的真正考验是在它被发布到野外的时候。研究和发布之间的时间差增加了需求、趋势和需求变化的机会。
For that reason, I always advocate for phasing your build plan. Focus on releasing small chunks of value and iterate.
出于这个原因，我总是主张分阶段执行您的构建计划。专注于释放价值的小块并迭代。
This is also important when your feature is solving an apparent pain point. Your customers will appreciate a solution that alleviates 60% of their problem now, rather than something that alleviates 100% of the problem but in a year’s time.
当您的特性要解决明显的棘手问题时，这一点也很重要。您的客户会喜欢现在就能缓解60%问题的解决方案，而不是一年后就能缓解100%问题的解决方案。
#17: Am I the best person to solve this?
#17：我是解决这个问题的最佳人选吗？
You might be thinking — What? After going through 16 questions to refine this problem and define the solution, you wanted me to give this to someone else?
你可能在想-什么？在经历了16个问题来提炼这个问题并定义解决方案之后，你想让我把这个交给别人？
Yes, particularly if your company is scaling up quickly and you’re becoming a more senior member of the team. Don’t be afraid to give away your Legos — that’s how you actually grow. By empowering a more junior team member to work on this problem, you get to a) learn new skills (e.g. delegating, mentoring) and b) free up your time to do more impactful work.
是的，特别是如果你的公司正在迅速扩大规模，你正在成为团队中更高级的成员。 不要害怕给予你的乐高积木--这才是你真正成长的方式。通过授权一个更初级的团队成员来解决这个问题，你可以a）学习新的技能（例如授权、指导）和b）腾出时间来做更有影响力的工作。
